The failure of the Obama presidency

On the eve of D-Day, the allied invasion of Europe during WWII, a day in which America demonstrated not only its power and honor, but its competence and leadership, we sit in a shambles of an era which is directly the result of a failed presidency. Ron Domenech gives voice to the point:

When Obama burst onto the national scene, he almost immediately became an inspirational figure. His promise spoke to our hearts as Americans and our desire for dramatic change in the wake of the fractious Bush years. His personal story and his optimism about the future sounded an affirming and uplifting note at a time when Americans were losing their hope for what tomorrow could bring. For a moment, it seemed like the promise of a uniter, not a divider, could provide leadership which – whatever Obama’s personal ideology – could lead to a healthier politics and a less fractured society.

Obama’s tenure in office has turned all these hopes into despair – despair in the corruption of our institutions, in the capability of our government, in our ability to manage large systems and more. Consider just the events of the past few days: the slow-rolling scandal of how we care for our Veterans, full of mismanagement, denials, and a growing awareness that this problem was shoved under the rug for years; the White House’s decision to embark on a top-down monopartisan environmental policy which will squeeze the working class and make energy more expensive; and of course, Obama’s decision to trade five high ranking terrorists for an apparent American deserter in Afghanistan, a decision which directly ignores the law of the land and will almost certainly lead to future deaths.

In these arenas, we see the Obama administration at its worst: willing to engage in irresponsible and occasionally illegal acts, bowling their way through mismanagement and cronyism and the rule of law to achieve their aims, no matter the cost. It is the same approach they used in his single domestic policy achievement – Obamacare – and they have not stopped using it since.

As an aside, many of us didn’t buy into much of what Domenech outlines in the first paragraph although it is clear that’s what sold the empty suit that is Obama. Not once, but twice. And for that, the American population can be blamed. It was clear from the beginning that this man didn’t have a clue how to govern or run a large organization. If there’s a silver lining to all of this, one of Obama’s goals was to demonstrate that large government was a good thing and could run social programs well. In that, as with everything else he’s touched, he’s been a dismal failure. In fact, with ObamaCare and the VA scandal he’s proven the opposite to be true.

So the inevitable question:

Why did this happen? Why did Obama fail? The typical answer from the left is one of racism or bigotry or Republican extremism. More even-handed analysts seem to believe that Obama tried to do too much, that he was a poor technocrat or struggled with mismanagement, or that the job of the presidency is just too big.

The real source of the problem Cook identifies isn’t universal intolerance for other points of view, but intolerance on one side of the debate for any legitimate reasoning to legislate according to their points of view. Where in the absence of national consensus conservatives reject federal law imposing something, typically favoring state level legislation instead, liberals in the Obama era cry racism or bigotry or worse. One side of the American body politic is willing to accept principled disagreement as a signal that an issue is either unsuited to or unripe for a federal response; while the other sees it as authorization to bypass the democratic process and impose their will by any means available.

In these arenas, we see the Obama administration at its worst: willing to engage in irresponsible and occasionally illegal acts, bowling their way through mismanagement and cronyism and the rule of law to achieve their aims, no matter the cost. It is the same approach they used in his single domestic policy achievement – Obamacare – and they have not stopped using it since.

But I would suggest it’s Obama’s inability to actually live up to his promise as a unifier of people which proved his undoing. Maybe it’s not his fault. Coming up in a Democratic state and a Democratic city, he lacked the ability to work across lines of ideology from the get-go, and if he failed to initially convince people to agree with him on something, he had no desire to keep working at it to convince them otherwise or the personal diplomacy to meet them halfway. Charlie Cook’s latest piece nods in the direction of this idea, but this line strikes me as off the mark: “The notion that “where you stand depends on where you sit” seems to cut little ice in our increasingly rigid society, when tolerance for different points of view is becoming increasingly rare.”

Obama’s tenure in office has turned all these hopes into despair – despair in the corruption of our institutions, in the capability of our government, in our ability to manage large systems and more. Consider just the events of the past few days: the slow-rolling scandal of how we care for our Veterans, full of mismanagement, denials, and a growing awareness that this problem was shoved under the rug for years; the White House’s decision to embark on a top-down monopartisan environmental policy which will squeeze the working class and make energy more expensive; and of course, Obama’s decision to trade five high ranking terrorists for an apparent American deserter in Afghanistan, a decision which directly ignores the law of the land and will almost certainly lead to future deaths.

The why is pretty easy … and extraordinarily frustrating. And at the risk of boring the 2 regular readers we have, a big part of it was because he had no accomplishments. None. Zip. How do you explain to Americans that the job of the presidency is to important to make it OJT? All the man had done his entire adult life is play at work and run for office.

Now roll that in with a majority of Americans being tired of the old regime and a huge dollop of “we want to prove to the world we’re not a racist country” (aka, cashing in on “white guilt”), not to mention being at the right place at the right time against a horrible opposition candidate and you can get a sense of how he managed to pull it off. Once.

But not twice. Unless you believed the nonsense about how it was Bush’s fault and that the “evil Rethuglicans” were the reason for his poor showing first term … not to mention the not so subtle undertones of racism if you didn’t “believe”, then I find it difficult to understand why he got a second term.

And, of course the proof of the pudding – the proof that it has nothing to do with Republicans and Bush – is his consistent and constant failure at foreign policy. In fact, I don’t really think he has a foreign policy – well, except for apologizing for America. But for 6 years now he has staggered from foreign policy disaster to foreign policy disaster. It is also hard to pin the corruption on Bush or the Republicans. Or the incompetence as demonstrated in the rollout of ObamaCare and administration of the VA.

But I think that there is more to it than just that – the Obama administration epitomizes the degeneracy of the left. As he points out, they don’t consider it an argument of principle, like climate change, they consider the “science to be settled”. Consequently, for them, it’s about winning. And they sincerely believe that “whatever it takes makes ‘right'”. Fudged numbers, lies, reality bending narratives, half-truths, intimidation and if necessary, violence. They are the equivalent of religious fanatics -zealots. Argument, no matter how well reasoned, is lost on them (and it is the primary reason attempts to “debate” them are a lost cause). They believe in power and its use. They march to an emotional “feel good” agenda that has been proven to be bankrupt time and time again by reality and they will destroy anything that gets in their way (from reputation to, well, you name it) of implementing it – forcing it upon us – again.

One thing the left doesn’t have, however, and doesn’t understand, is the concept of “honor”. Frankly you can’t have honor and act like they do. And so they are constantly tripped up by it. The Bergdahl fiasco is a perfect example. No you may say, what the hell does “honor” have to do with all of this? Well, honor is based in principles and is defined as “honesty, fairness, or integrity in one’s beliefs and actions.” There is very little of that among the rabid zealotry of the left. There is no honesty. “Fairness” is an excuse to control money, speech and anything else they can fit under that code-word umbrella. And integrity is the last thing most of the zealous left are concerned with. And that points out why “argument” from a point of honor (meaning what it says) is a waste of breath and time.

But back to the Bergdahl affair as the case in point. The inability to understand the concept of honor and what it means (especially as it concerns the military), is what has turned this into a fiasco.

The left’s blinkered view of military culture is perhaps best summarized by Elias Isquith, a young writer for Salon.com, who yesterday explained the backlash against the Bergdahl deal as follows: “When a member of the military fails to adhere to the far right’s rigid formula of what a soldier should be (nationalistic, religious, obedient; conservative) right-wingers . . . come down on them [sic] like a ton of bricks.” He cited one example in addition to Bergdahl: John Kerry.

Isquith seems to imply that servicemen are fungible, each entitled to equal respect regardless of conduct. But the bitter criticism of Kerry in 2004 and Bergdahl today would carry no force if it came from mere “right-wingers.” It comes, instead, from servicemen and veterans who see the two men as having behaved dishonorably. Once again the left is being undone by its failure to comprehend the centrality of honor to military culture.

It is one of the reasons Obama garners such little respect from the military as a whole.

That’s because the left (and Obama) have so little contact with an honor society and certainly find honor (much like the Constitution) a hinderance in pursuit of their agenda. So they were blindsided by the blowback. It would be funny if it hadn’t been such a horrible deal. They are stunned. Just as Kerry was stunned in 2004. They don’t get it, they don’t understand it and that’s because they don’t believe in it and certainly don’t live it.

Why has Barack Obama failed as a president?

Why has the left failed every time it has tried to implement its agenda?

For a bunch of self-described brilliant people, you’d think they’d have figured it out by now.

46 Responses to The failure of the Obama presidency

the fractious Bush years
Yet Bush wasn’t that bad. He had faults, but to a large extent he became hated because of a relentless MSM cutting him down. He deserved better of his countrymen. for that reason I have trouble attacking even his faults; it seems like a cheap and easy shot, going after someone so hated and despised who really does not deserve it.

It isn’t Bush’s fault. It started with Gore trying to cheat him out of the Presidency and never ended. Remember his motorcade being egged on enaguration day? The left is the side that permanently divided this country. Sure, we were “united” for about 10 minutes after 9/11 but the second the Dems made the calculation that they can run against Iraq, suddenly “Bush lied” and the rest is history.
Eff ’em. The more the Obama Presidency screws up, the more it winds up hurting the very people who bought into it. Fine by me.

It is interesting that about 60% of Dem Senators voted for the war. And so far all of Obama’s SoSs and VPs voted for it.
Yet in the middle of the war, the Dem Senators (many who voted for it) attacked a general (who didn’t vote for it) who was winning the war. talk about shitting on the troops.
The truth is that Dems don’t care about the war, IMO. Manufactured outrage. Gives them a reason to hate Bush.
It is like Gitmo. It is like the place ceased to exist now that Obama is in the WH.

With respect to Kerry, I suspect most Dems think the Swift Boat Vets were working for Bush/Rove. Anyone with a clue understood they were doing it because of Kerry, and the stab in the back he inflicted when he came home and participated in Winter Soldier.
He told lies in front of Congress and the nation about what happened in Vietnam. That was what motivated the Vets; had it simply been that Kerry was a goof who didn’t deserve his medals the Vets would have either supported him or kept a low profile depending on their individual take on things, but when he lied about his comrads in such a matter he provoked blowback.

My new nutshell for explaining Obamic actions….
�“Never attribute to stupidity that which can be adequately explained by malice”.

Until someone shows me different…

And perhaps anti-Americanism should be substituted for “malice”. Perhaps what drives the man is not so much outright bad intent, but a set of values completely antithetical to our national identity. A set of values that are warped by arrogance, hubris, and resentment of others who offer any opposition to his values and his ego.

I’ll stand by that as being the best-fitting hypothesis to explain this goat-fluck we’ve lived the last several years. If we were done with it last weekend, I would be profoundly grateful. We are not, tragically. We have miles to go before we can begin to correct the awful legacy of this abhorrent gang. And THAT will take some doing…

You really have to ask when the glow of “Hope & Change” will finally rub off.
But, when will the African-American community realize that the first Black President is about to leave office and nothing .. and I do mean nothing … has changed in the Black neighborhoods.
The same can be said of multiple groups of Obama supporters.

Easy – Raccccissssssssstttssssss!
The white folks elected the man and then turned on him when they, uh, realized he, uh, wasn’t….white……..huh?
Okay, they turned on him when they figured out they weren’t getting a magic negro? Cliff Huxtable? He wasn’t enough of a gangsta and didn’t bust a cap in everyone’s ass in Congress when they didn’t go along with him?

Hey, it doesn’t HAVE to make sense man, just like electing a guy with a legally buried past and no experience didn’t make sense.
Confirmation bias is an awesome thing.

{sigh} So much wrong in this. Not surprising, considering the inbred nature of the people at this site. Which I use as examples in my class of how inbred the right is. Intellectually, of course. I wouldn’t dare suggest that you are actually inbred. Though for the ones living in the south, I suppose it’s possible, perhaps even likely. That would account for how dense you are, and the fact that you are always wrong and fail to appreciate my brilliance, generosity, and humility in coming here and trying to educate you all.
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And when I use the site as examples, my students just eat it up. They all nod their heads and laugh and say “Inbred!”, just as I have taught them. Taught them to think for themselves, I mean. They say that because they really, really think it, based on their own independent judgment, and certainly not because I would give them a lower grade if they disputed my brilliance on this. Or failed to laugh at my jokes. Or ever criticized Obama.
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Because I wouldn’t. Really, I wouldn’t. Stop laughing! If they made sound arguments, I would still give them a good grade. Though how someone makes a sound argument for such inbred opinions, I can’t really imagine.
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Anyway, it’s never happened. Because they agree with me all the time. Unlike the inbred people around here, they realize that I’m brilliant because I have an doctorate from a place with “advanced” in its name, and because I am a published author on German foreign policy, and not a soulless, narcissistic hack who used a vanity press to get my name on a book! Stop saying that!
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Anyway, back to this Bergdahl situation. Obama did exactly the right thing. He rescued a brave soldier who had been held captive for five years. It just confounds me that you dense righties can’t see that, and appreciate what he did.
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OK, so the guy was a little bit misguided, and maybe he kind of deserted. A little bit. Which I’m sure he immediately regretted, and besides, his intentions were good. He realized how our imperialist military oppresses those wogs noble brown people in Afghanistan, and wanted to make amends. Which makes him a hero!
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As for all the other bad stuff said about it him, it’s coming from other deranged military types, who are all whacked out from the stress of using violence to oppress wogs noble brown people, just like the ex-military basket cases who post and comment here.
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He’s being swiftboated. That means whatever is being said about him is false and malicious. I decree it.
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See, that’s the advantage of having postmodern godlike powers of political science. We on the left can define words any way we want, and you dense righties just have to suck it up and take it.
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We have defined swiftboating to mean that people who served in the military can’t ever, ever, ever criticize anyone if it makes someone on the left look bad. Because they’re whacked out basket cases – psychopaths, as that administration guy said on Twitter yesterday.
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Unless, of course, they criticize the military or the Bush regime or anyone on the right. Then they are unimpeachable sources of perfect information.
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See how it works? I did a peace seminar years ago with Cindy Sheehan, who had absolute moral authority because she lost a son in Iraq. Absolute, I tell you. But, as anyone on the left could easily see, those parents who lost sons in the operation to try and get Bergdahl back have no moral authority at all to criticize him. His intentions were good, and he was trying to help those wogs noble brown people, so the absolute moral authority transfers to Bergdahl!
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No contradiction in that! Shut up, shut up, shut up, there is no contradiction! By the power of our postmodern training, we decree that absolute moral authority goes whereever we need it to go. You psychopaths who served in the military don’t get a vote. You just have to suck it up.
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As for the rest of the post, it’s just what I expect from an ex-military basket case. Blathering on about honor and how Obama doesn’t have any. Of course he doesn’t! It’s a silly, obsolete concept, and only inbred military types don’t get that. You are all being left behind, and you know I’m right, and you just can’t stand it. That’s why you insult me, because you know I’m right.
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See how my postmodern training just defeats you every time? If you don’t challenge me, I must be right because you have no response. If you challenge me, I handwave it away, a thousand times if necessary, and that proves that I’m right. If you insult me, it proves I’m right because I’ve made you angry and you have no other response. Deep down you know it. I decree it. {giggle}
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Also, claiming that Obama is incompetent and has no accomplishments, well, that’s just inbred. He thinks like me! That’s an accomplishment right there, to have a president who understands how to think like a brilliant academic like me. And don’t start with how I’m a nobody at a moose-infested fourth-tier university barely above a community college, and who has no accomplishments in my field. Just don’t start! I’m so, so smart and accomplished, and I live a magical life. Yes, magical! {giggle}
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And part of my magical life {giggle} lets me go to Italy every year with some students. Which I don’t either stare at the female ones like Humbert Humbert staring at Lolita because I’m a desperate failure as a male and can’t even keep a Russian bride happy, so stop saying that.
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Anyway, I’m back from my sojourn to Italy now, so I’ll be able to give you this kind of rich, creamy analysis from time to time. Which I do totally out of the goodness of my heart and certainly not because I’m so desperate for self-validation that I have to come here and fool myself into thinking I’ve bested you. Stop saying that.
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Ta-ta for now. Must unpack, and make sure none of the Italian versions of the giant magenta caterpillars stowed away in my luggage. They’re just like the American versions, with Sarah Palin’s face and ample bosom, but when they talk in Sarah Palin’s voice, they have an Italian accent.
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And I must sort out my photos from the trip, which are not either mostly young women, stop saying that. I won’t either be printing them to keep by my bedside. Not necessary. I have a tablet.

His presidency wasn’t his first failure. He failed as a community organizer also, only he failure was easier to hide. The Anneberg Challenge, which he presided over, spent millions to improve education in Chicago, and afterwards it acheived virturally nothing. He has proven to have poor judgement in matching people to jobs, giving authority and expecting responsiblilty. Second rate people surround themselves with even lower rate people, which is what has gone on. No one can perform better than Obama, for they would be showing him up, and he can’t have that.

There is not hope for this man’s legacy, like Clinton and Carter, he will be young enough to be around for years trying to interfere in order to create a legacy in hindsight.

Perhaps the Anneburg Challange achieved its goals, which were probably more related to leftist propaganda then anything else.
There is a healthy sign in a leader when he leaves office and goes back to his plantation or ranch. Washington set the standard, of course, and Jefferson never went back to DC after he left office (in fact I understand he spent weekends at Montecello).
Reagan and Bush are also good examples. The flip side is someone like Clinton who seems to love the live of DC power. It is the sign of a sick individual. A power hungry type of person. Now, Carter has always seemed angry and meddling in part because he feels he wasn’t appreciated, but Clinton actually seems to just love the smell of power. Obama has indicated he will continue to live in DC after he leaves office. He’s the same sort of twisted man, perhaps moreso.

Perhaps it is wrong of me, but I find it disgusting that he represents the U.S. on the 70th anniversary of a day on which so many “kids” (MUCH younger than our Bergdahl character) performed so much…laid down so much…in defense of American ideals. The contrast is all I can stand…and I’m not sure I can stand it.

“The idea that we are trying Sergeant Bergdahl in the court of public opinion in abstentia, without giving him an opportunity to give his story and to tell us what happened, frankly, I find repugnant,” Blinken [deputy national security adviser] said.
In the military, we had a two word, curt, response of crap like that. The first word was “Tough”. You can fill in the blank.

Hey, it’s not like the left would ever “try anyone in the court of public opinion”. They would never, say, hound a guy out of owning a sport team because of an old video that suggests he is racist. Or brand three college lacrosse players as obvious rapists and throw them out of school based on the changing story of some bimbo whose story changes every time she tells it.

Seriously, these guys have gone full “big lie” since Obama’s re-election. They really, really don’t give a damn what the facts are about Bergdahl, or the prisoner swap (or the VA, or the IRS, or Benghazi, or Obamacare, or…). All they care about – ALL THEY CARE ABOUT – is whether something makes Obama look bad. If it does, it’s vicious, mean-spirited propaganda. If something makes him look good, we’re just supposed to swallow it, no matter how manufactured, false to fact, or even ridiculous, it is.

Kinda like Bergdahl was “rescued” by Obama because of his failing health…er…the Taliban might kill him…or something to be cobbled up tomorrow.

On what given day in the last five years was this boob NOT under a real threat of being killed by the Haqqani…??? After carefully keeping him alive for five years, what would have convinced them he had no further use GIVEN that there had been negotiations for about two years? And what about all the other hostages…??? (Um…crickets…)

I heard the Witch of the West had dispatched the flying monkeys to capture him and their ETA was about 15 minutes after the Blackhawks cleared the LZ – it was THAT close man.

For dramatic effect, in the movie version they’ll actually be swarms of them winging over the nearest ridgeline and of the two lead monkeys (the pathfinder ones, of course), one will be shredded by the lead chopper’s blade just as they lift off, while the other one will be killed by Bowe himself grabbing the door gunner’s weapon and shooting it as it lands on the right skid with a witch grenade.

“The recent Bergdahl prisoner swap in which five hardened Taliban terrorists were released from prison is rubbing a lot of the military veterans attending D-Day events the wrong way.
“It’s not that we don’t want to respect the commander-in-chief,” one told me sadly. “It’s just that he makes it so hard to do so.”

I wonder how they feel knowing that the hard work and sacrifice they endured was for a group of people (not all, but a majority at this point) that would unfortunately prove unworthy a mere 70 years later

A remembrance. As usual, Hollywood got it WRONG. The guns had been removed from their emplacements on the cliffs. But the Rangers found them a short distance inland, and took them out, according to their mission. All before 0900. For the next two days they defended against German counterattacks.

As I recall from my years on the left, we were thoroughly convinced of our moral and intellectual superiority. There was no need to consider arguments from the right. The only question was whether we were leftist enough or possibly too much.
The downside was an inability to question ourselves and our policies, and thereby learn from our mistakes. If we failed, we would conclude we didn’t push hard enough or fight our opponents hard enough. These defects are the hallmarks of the Obama administration.

“His promise spoke to our hearts as Americans and our desire for dramatic change in the wake of the fractious Bush years.”
Obama and his cohort are the cause of the “fractious Bush years”. Obama presenting himself as the solution to “fractious” partisan politics was tantamount to a protection scam.

Obama’s presidency is NOT a failure, and more than the public schools are a failure: they are right on target for their intended purposes.
Neither are they a manifestation of incompetence – they are competence on a grand scale….if the intent is sabotage.
Com’on, people! Wake up and stop playing the game by the Hegel/Alinisky/Mao/Leninist playbook!

The NYT tried to blame Bergdahl’s “raggety” squad but were taken to the shed by one commenter ..

Command staff’s criticism of front line unit uniform standards probably dates to the days of Caesar, and it seems a stretch to describe Sgt. Bergdahl’s unit as “trouble[d]” because its soldiers were photographed in doo rags and cut off t shirts. The “crude” nature of their observation post also probably had more to do with a lack of support from their battalion, regimental and division staffs, as opposed to some lack of unit discipline. What were they supposed to do, knit concertina wire? The article, unfortunately, seems an effort to deflect general, strategic problems in the war in Afghanastan to the people least responsible for it: the front line grunts.

It’s hard for me to be angry that they have the expectation that we’ll actually take half decent care of them, though I’d prefer it if we gave them a meal and chartered some planes headed south.
You notice they don’t take them as far as the border with Guatemala and Mexico to make the drop off on the premise that Mexico will embrace and welcome them as new citizens.

“There was a great effort to keep Mr. and Mrs. Bergdahl updated on developments,”Air Force Colonel Timothy Marsano, Idaho’s National Guard spokesman ​who has served as Bergdahl family’s spokesman, told the Washington Times. He explained that Mr. and Mrs. Bergdahl took part in as many as 20 video conferences throughout the five years of Bergdahl’s captivity.

Former C.I.A. analyst Larry Johnson, who was involved with the response to the Lebanon hostage crisis of the 1980s, believes that the Obama administration was wrong in granting the parents such access. He told the Washington Times that he had never heard of allowing families into top-level discussions regarding the efforts to free their relatives. “The Bergdahls shouldn’t have been part of that for no other reason than on the off chance they may inadvertently divulge some tactic,” he said.http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/379886/white-house-invited-bergdahls-parents-top-level-video-conferences-molly-wharton